A painfully early start today, my alarm went off at 6am! I put myself through the normal morning routine, kettle, coffee, cloths, food, drive, and met James at Bank Street Lodge. We headed over to Aonach Mor Ski centre and got on the gondola at 8am Sharp.

We looked out of the top station., snow blowing heavily, a very Scottish start. We put on our goggles, peered into the whiteness in front of us made our way west to the viewpoint, then slightly south to drop off the South side of Aonach Mor. Several hours of walking later got us to the valley below Golden Oldie. I can't explain the drudgery of walking through a Scottish snow shower for hours on end. Plodding along a seemingly endless valley towards a vague start point of a classic winter test-piece climb. 

Sam had given us some words of advice, they went something along the line of "its a long route that often catches people out, take two 60m ropes so that you can escape the route if you need to and a full climbing rack". At the bottom of the rib of rock we geared up. The starting ground looked fairy easy so rather than tying into the ropes James shoved his in his bag and I threw mine over my shoulders and dangled it down the sides of my bag. The plan was to rope up when the ground became more tricky. 

We climbed up. It got steeper, but not difficult. We climbed onto a slab, the course was strait up, but the middle looked awkward but it went. A few tricky big steps saw us on to the platform above the rock. A few more moves and we were on a narrow ridge. A few more moves and we were off it. We carried on up some easy ground expecting the difficulties to begin at any moment. 

To our shock we found ourselves on the summit plateau of Aonach Mor! Apparently we had just soloed up the whole route! We turned East and headed back through the blizzard towards the gondola. We walked on a bearing to find the top of the ski centre and found ourselves back at the gondola station just as they were announcing the last lift down due to bad weather.

Well, not much to say about today, but a few learning points.

The avalanche risk was high, there had been a lot of fresh snow. I decided to be clever. Lizzy had joined James and I for a winter climb. The classic east ridge of Bein a'Choraim looked like it might go despite the awful weather warnings. 

We parked up in the lay by and stepped out of the BBV into over a foot of snow. (This should have been the first sign of disaster). It was a late start, but the walk starts on a track through the forrest and it was a blue sky day, perfect. We wound our way through trees that were heavy laden with snow commenting on the picturesqueness of the woods. We came to the river, we managed a possibly dodgy river crossing, and scrambled up the bank onto the Land Rover track that was to be our "motorway of a path" through the rest of the woods to the open hillside behind and our ridge line.

To our dismay we found the track was full of snow. Knee to waste deep powder snow! We broke trail for 3h 30min! Taking it in turn we would smash a trench through the snow until we were shattered, then drop to the back and let some one else take a go. 

At 2:15pm we were finally out of the woods! We got a brief glimpse of our ridge line, plastered with snow, no, loaded with snow, before the cloud swirled round us and hid the ridge from view. Our hearts sank as our weather window vanished before our eyes. With good weather we could have risked the dodgy terrain and snow, as we would have been able to look at what was above us and decide on our safety. With ought the visibility the risk was unjustifiable. 

Our hearts heavy, our bodies tired, we turned around and retraced our steps. It took us another soul destroying 2h 45min to plod back to the van. It was a slow torturous days walking. The company was good though. We had a dismal coffee in a pub just down the road before parting ways with Lizzy.

Back to the Mamores again today. James and I headed to tick of the two most Western Munros in the Mamores. We parked up midway down Glen Nevis and headed uphill. It was warm work. Heading almost strait up the hill from a cold start. The North Ridge of Stob Ban is an interesting slightly technical ridge. After what felt like an eternity of slogging up hill we crested the ridge proper. Here it turned slightly more interesting. The scrambling involved the use of hands and axes to make our way round, over and between sticking up rocks. Unfortunately this was so engaging that I forgot to take any photos! 

I know so you have all stopped reading. I'm sorry I will attempt to take more photos in the future. However we carried on till we reached our first summit before turing round and navigating towards our second Munro of the day. This second summit provided interest of a different kind. It was a wider plateau and very very white. We navigated our way to the summit cairn where we gratefully took shelter and had a bite of lunch. 

After lunch we quickly left the summit and followed a narrow ridge East towards the waiting van. Here the wind picked up and movement was interesting. Fortunately we made it back to the van unscathed, but tired. 

I met up with James at Bank Street Lodge in Fort William Last night (Monday) to discuss plans for today. After a quick look at the weather we decided to take on the classic Ring of Steall in the Mamores, at the end of Glen Nevis. This little mountain jaunt takes in four Munros over 16km and has 1676m of assent. Guide book times are 9-12h, in summer, So its actually quite a long day out. 

Oh and if this wasn't daunting enough, the highlight of the route is the aptly named Devil's Ridge. This knife edge ridge is made slightly more interesting by a rocky "tooth" that sits in the middle and poses an awkward obstacle. 

We met early and headed off down Glen Nevis. We left the car park at a brisk pace and quickly found ourselves at the notorious "Wire Bridge". We wobbled our way over this contemplating the wet ending that awaited us should we slip and land in the river below us. We the bog hopped and heather slogged our way up the mountain towards our first summit.

We quickly found our way onto the summit of An Gearanach. On route we had met a couple who decided to turn back. We headed on. The summit was quite un remarkable. Just a small top on a long ridge. Following the ridge we made our way onto eh op of Stob Coire a' Chairn. So far the ridge had been narrow but nothing to write home about. Although if it was narrow and scary the last thing I would be doing is writing home and telling mum. Anyway a slightly longer section of ridge let us to Am Bodach. This mountain I was particularly glad to finally summit. Jess and I tried from Kinlochleven several years ago and last year Sarah and I tried from the same way, both times we had to turn back.

After Am Bodach we made our way round towards the Devils ridge. This, I'm afraid to say, did not live up to its fearsome reputation. We sauntered along it until we reached a small rock tooth, we awkwardly climbed round it and I was confronted by the second set of people of the day. They were very uncommunicative and James and I thought that they were leaving it pretty late to be starting the route. Anyway we carried on till we reached the summit of Sgurr a' Mhaim, our final Munro of the round. 

From here it was an easy but dull walk down a broad shoulder of the mountain back to the Glen below. I was glad to be back at the van. I must confess that I was slightly disappointed by the route. I'm sure that with better visibility it would have been spectacular, but it felt like a bit of a long plod. My hair did freeze in an amusing way though.

It was warm in the van this morning. We woke up to several inches of snow covering the van. Unfortunately the gas had finally run out during post dinner tea last night so we needed to go and get breakfast in Aviemore. Breakfast was at the Mountain Cafe, which was nice. Lizzy an dI then headed up to the Ski Centre to gear up and head out onto the hill. 

The plan was to head up to the Cairngorm Plateau, then either over to Ben Macdui or round the top of the Coires depending on the weather. The forecast was for a repeat of yesterdays apocalyptic weather. 

Just before we were about to leave Lizzy realised that she couldn't find her phone. After 10min of franticly searching the van and our bags we came to the sickening conclusion that it must still be in the Caffe. So back down to Avimore it was. Then back up to the ski centre. So it was about 11 by the time we finally got round to leaving the van.  

We set off into the Coires chatting about winter navigation strategies and quickly overtook a party of Ski tourers who were heading towards the Hutchinson Hut. then we made it up to point 1083. before striking out for the summit of Cain Lochan. The weather was better than expected, but we were now too late to head out to Macdui. We had a session practicing cutting steps on our way up to Lochan. Then we ambled along the rim of the Coires before descending to the carpark. It was a nice day out and a good opportunity to practice some winter skills. 

Back in Aviemore it was time for Lizzy and I to part company. She headed back to Skye while I headed for Glasgow via Fort William. 

Glasgow via Fort William, an odd route choice I'll grant you, as it turned out it was totally worth it.

I reached Glen Coe in full dark, but as I drove up the pass I had to pull over. The sky was clear and a million stars were visible. Better than that was the moon. Although not quite full it was clear and bright. It lit up the whole valley. 

So what is really weather? Thats a hard one to answer. Scottish winter mountaineering is not like summer alpine weather. In the Alps you usually only go out if its a nice day. In Scotland it is rarely a "nice" day. Those stunning blue bird days of clear skies and crisp snow where you can walk in a T-shrit all day and enjoy life and rare. Really rare. 

Real Scottish winter weather is pretty brutal. Lizzy and I were reminded of this today. Lizzy had hoped over from sky for a few days of winter mountaineering with me. Now I had never been out with Lizzy before so a short bimmble from the Cairngorm Ski Centre carpark was on the cards. 

We met in the carpark and after a quick chat about the apocalyptic weather forecast (heavy snow and strong winds) we geared up and headed out. The route was to wander up to point 1141, then over to the summit of Cairngorm, then back down to the carpark. 

The idea was to see what the weather was like and always be happy to turn back if it got silly. 

So up we went. It was very very windy. It snowed, a lot. All this before we left the carpark. but we carried on. Up we want to the top of the ski tows on the Fiacaill a Choire Chais. 

The weather was bad but not un manageable, so we headed up to point 1141. Where the weather eased a bit. So we decided to navigate to the summit of Cairn Gorm. We had a quick chat about winter navigation strategies then off we went. We found the summit without much difficulty, after all there is a massive weather station on it! 

Now came the task of navigating our way off the summit. We decided to head for the Ptarmigan station as it should prove quite a good catching feature. As we left the summit the weather closed in properly. Visibility dropped to a few meters, and then only if there were rocks in front of us. We had endeared a proper whiteout. After a period of time we hit ski fences. I was glad to find them. Whiteouts do funny things to your head. There is nothing to fall off between the summit of Cairn Gorm and the Ptarmigan station, but that doesn't stop you expecting to fall off some unseen hazard when navigating in zero visibility. 

We reached the ski toes an realised that we were about 100m East of the station. So turning to a new bearing we headed off to find the station. We found it. Upsettingly the ski doors were locked. We could see people inside though so went round to the wakers entrance and rang the bell and knocked on the glass. 

We were let inside by some very surprised looking Cairngorm Staff. We looked like snowmen. My pockets and bag had filled up with spin drift and I had a large clump of snow attached to the windward side of my face. We were told that the ski road was about to be closed, so we decided to call it a day and get the train down. 

It was a proper introduction to the challenges of really bad winter weather. 

Well slightly warmer weather and strong winds and scoured the slopes and melted the snow this morning. Will and I decided to head up Bynack More. Its about 22km round trip, but most of it is on 4x4 track so its a relatively easy day.

As we walked through Glenmore Forest it felt like a spring day not a winters day. Well we made our way towards the mountain chatting shop and planning an Intro to Winter Walking course for next year (anyone interested) we came across a Ski mountaineer with the largest bag that either of us have seen for a long time. 

The steep summit slopes of Bynack More rose above us before we met anyone else. There as we tried to hide from the biting winds we met a couple of ladies who were heading towards the summit. Unfortunately as we watched they struggled on the snow slopes. It looked as if the wind was getting the better of them. The line they were following, although the obvious line, was the very crest of the ridge of Bynack More. Thus they took the fully brunt of the wind and after a doze of meters hight gain they turned round and retreated. 

They looked quite shaken up as they chatted to us about the difficulty of the task ahead of us. one suggested that if she had been wearing her crampons she might have been able to continue. We thanked them for their advice, said that we would have a look a the snow when we got to it and picked our line up the ridge. We stayed in the lee of the hill and although the wind was still strong it was not impossible to walk through. 

We made the summit without the need to spike up, intact I'm sure crampons would have been detrimental to walking on the frozen summit gravel. After a quick bite to eat on the summit we decided to pop over to Bynack Beg before heading back to Glenmore Lodge. 

Even though it lacked much snow it was a truly shattering day out. The wind has a draining effect on your body. Will decided that he was going to head back towards South Wales and give himself longer for the drive and to recover at the other end. So after a few good days we said our farewell and agreed to meet again later in the season.

Monday morning. My alarm goes off at about 7am. What is wrong with my life? I'm not being paid to be up this early. Its cold in the van. I have to reach out from my duvet to light the stove, to heat the kettle and the van. Is it worth it? 

Yes. Always. Its winter. There are mountains to discover and people to discover them with. The forecast for the day is very strong Westerly winds. However Will and I have planned our day well and chosen to head to Newtonmore where there are a couple of Munros that we should get up with out much trouble. 

We parked the BBV at the end of a narrow icy road. Its not an early start by the time we have finished sorting out our kit and left the van. Three chaps have already overtaken us and headed off up the track towards the distant mountains. I'm going to claim that this was tactical on our part as we got to follow there tracks for the first hour and thus avoided the arduous task of breaking trail in the soft snow. 

We folllowed a 4x4 truck up the side of a burn towards A' Chailleach, our first munro. Unfortunately the mountain was on the far side of this quite substantial river, so we followed it past the washed out fords hoping to find somewhere that we could cross. 

Will pioneered a crossing at a possible looking place. I didn't have much faith in his ability to get across with out getting wet, I very much doubted that I would get across dry even if he did, so i did the only sensible thing and started videoing. At least it would be a youtube sensation if he did get wet. 

He made it across. So did I . Thankfully we both had walking poles otherwise it would have been a very tricky crossing. Just as I made it across the river (dry) the three other intrepid hill walkers came down stream to follow our crossing. Apparently there was noting better further up. 

The first chap got across without issue, he used his poles; the other two decided to brave it without poles and we were quite sure that they got wet feet, but would admit to nothing. 

We went our separate ways then. Will and I planned to use the mountain to shield us from the battering that we were sure to get from the wind; the other three decided to try and find the path and follow that then follow along the ridge, fully exposed to the wrath of the wind. 

Well we headed onward and upward until we eventually reached the summit. As we sat at the summit enjoying a brief restate from the wind the other three guys joined us. One of them looked slightly worse for wear. We had a pleasant chat and explained that we were heading for the second Munro and the lead guy expressed and intention to follow behind with his friends. 

So off we walked into the wind. The snow was perfect. Solid wind scoured snow, we just walked over it without sinking. From the summit of Carn Sgùlain, our second munro, it was apparent that the others had retuned the way they had come up. 

We headed round above the tributaries of the main river so as to avoid having to cross the river later and then dropped back to the valley. Now it was just a case of plodding our way back to the van. Eventually we reached it just as the sunset had faded to inky blackness. A true quality winter day out.

Sunday 25th January. 

My first day out in Scottish winter this season. Its been along time coming but finally I found myself wrapped up for the Scottish hills and with a carefully packed rucksack on my back. My lunch had been carefully selected to provide a huge calorie count, and I was ready to go.

Sue and I left the Cairngorm Ski carpark and headed out towards the Northern Cories. It was blowing a hoolie. The idea was to practice our navigation techniques across the foot of the Cories up to point 1083 along the top of Cairn Lochan and back down to the ski centre via point 1141. 

It was a good plan. However to quote Robert Burns 

That is to say, the weather had other plans for us today. We navigated our way for about 2km battling strong winds before finally having to give up and return to the cars. we had made it to just below the plateau of 1083m, but the wind had started blowing us to the ground and on a couple of occasions moved us back down the hill. 

Its not often that the wind bothers me. Usually I love being battered by the wind. On this occasion I decided that the days objectives simply were not worth the possible risk to my ankles. So it was with regret that we turn tail and legged it off the hill. We ended up in the Mountain Cafe enjoying cake and coffee and musing over our defeat. Its a good place to muse over possible future outings. s

Well I'm late at writing this up, very late.

So it's he end of January and I'm sure you have all been wondering what I have been up to.

I started the year with Fran in France. We booked a last minuet ski holiday to Flaine, where one of Fran's friends had an apartment. Dave had agreed to put us up for the week, show us around and join us on the slopes. He turned out to be a quality guy and we had a great time. 


Now, I haven't been skiing for over 10 years. Henry (my brother) had talked me into buying ski boots and skis, so when we got on to the slopes on that first day I was slightly nervous. What if I hated skiing? What if I was awful? Was I about to look like a muppet with all the gear and no idea? 


Turns out my fears were mostly unfounded. I can still ski. Fran and I had a cracking time on the slopes and I was genuinely gutted when the week was over and it was time to pack away my skis and catch a flight back to England.